Sierra Leonean writer Vickie Remoe replaces the famous “A is for Apple” with “A is for Akara” in her children’s book called Adama Loves Akara.
She told the BBC’s Focus on Africa that she wanted to have a book that had things children could relate to.
Akara are fried dumplings, or fritters, popular in West Africa. In Nigeria they’re made out of beans, while in other parts of the continent as well as in Brazil and parts of Caribbean the sweet variety is made from rice flour and bananas.
“There are lots of cultural moments that I put in the book to allow parents to have conversations around who we are and what our culture is,” she said.
“When I was growing up in Sierra Leone and learning English ‘A was for Apple’… As I was teaching my son how to read I had bought all these things to teach phonetics but I realised the words they were using as points of reference were kind of not really present.”
Ms Remoe wants parents to be intentional about the content their children consume and hopes the materials that have accessible things will help.